Varada Sethu, who played Fifteenth Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) companion, Belinda Chandra, has admitted she was “really surprised” at the audience’s negative reaction to how her character was written out of the series.

Belinda was essentially sidelined substantially in the Series 15 finale, The Reality War, and was charged with apparently becoming a mother to Poppy, a girl we first met in Space Babies and who returned in Wish World. It all seemed rather rushed and ill-thought-out, perhaps owing to the way Gatwa’s regeneration had to be shoehorned in following reshoots.

But Sethu told The Whoniverse Show that she was happy with the storyline:

“I was really surprised by how people reacted to that. I really loved that [Belinda] got to be a mother because it felt weird to lose Poppy. It felt really, really sad for her to lose her and for her to be this alternate reality that Belinda won’t ever be able to keep. It was really sad. I quite liked that Belinda got to be a mum and that it’s with Poppy and that Poppy gets to live.”

Now, whether this is Varada being diplomatic or if she’s genuinely happy with the way Belinda left the TARDIS, we don’t know yet. We probably won’t know for some time, when the behind-the-scenes stuff all leaks out.

Nonetheless, it does seem that things didn’t go according to plan during that most recent era of the show: for one, there’s a photo of the alternative ending; then there are odd inconsistencies over whether Belinda was really due to be Poppy’s mum (which doesn’t really work with her arc during the series) or whether Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) was actually going to get that storyline given hints in the aforementioned Space Babies.

Either way, the real story will be revealed. Or versions of it. And those will become muddied and speculation will continue forever…